Modus Vivendi
by Saucery
Summary: Never play Truth or Dare with a Potter. Just. Don't.


**Summary:** The year is 1976. The Wizarding World has yet to be plunged into war, and Voldemort has yet to emerge from the shadows. The young Severus Snape hasn't pledged his loyalty to either Dumbledore or the Dark Lord - but he has, already, pledged his utter enmity to Sirius Black. In their last year at Hogwarts, these two boys find themselves the unlikeliest of allies, against a foe more powerful than they could ever have imagined. Will ancient grudge break to new mutiny, or will new accords be formed, instead?

**Notes:** _Modus vivendi_ is a Latin phrase signifying an agreement between those whose opinions differ, such that they agree to disagree.

* * *

><p><strong>MODUS VIVENDI<strong>

** - I -**

**Truth or Dare**

* * *

><p>"A hit! A palpable hit!" James crowed. "Look at what it says, Sirius!"<p>

Sirius stared down at his piece of parchment. The words had practically burned themselves onto his retinas.

"I can read what it bloody well says, you pillock." His throat was dry. "_You_ didn't put that in there, did you?"

"Nonsense," chortled James. "You know the spell's designed to pick the most hateful thing you could possibly think of doing, yeah? Well, this proves it works!"

"I think it's stupid," said Sirius, glumly. He crumpled the piece of paper in his hands, refusing to look at it again. Really, he should've known. He should've _known_ that playing magically-assisted Truth or Dare with a Potter was a terrible idea.

"It's rather clever, actually," murmured Remus, the bastard. He was gazing contemplatively at the arithmantic pattern James had sketched out earlier. "If we can work something like this into the Map, maybe we can make it focus on our enemies. It's too crowded as it is; the dots overlap, sometimes, and we can't always tell who's who. This way, we can get the Map to show only our 'most hateful' people. Right, James?"

"Right!"

"It'd be a tactical advantage," Peter chimed in. "You know, 'specially when we become Aurors. Hunting down Death Eaters, and all that."

"We could even patent it!" James was glowing. The prat was _glowing_. And Sirius would have to -

"Well," said Sirius, feeling vengeful, "why don't _you_ pick out a dare, then? Seeing as how you're so eager to prove that your bloody spell works."

"I'm a wizard of my word," answered James, with gravity. "So let's just say you offered Truth, and I picked Dare, all right?"

"You _always_ pick Dare," Peter pointed out.

"Well, obviously. It's the manly choice. And I'm a manly man."

"A manly man who gets led around on a leash by a red-headed girl half his size," muttered Remus, and got a swift jab of James's elbow for his trouble.

"Shut it, Moony. 'Sides, Lily's only a head shorter." So saying, James dug into the hat, which was strangely slouchy and elongated, given that it had been Transfigured from a sock. The arithmantic pattern around it glowed; James withdrew a chit of parchment.

"What's it say?" asked Sirius, and all three of them crowded closer to James.

_In Lily Evans's presence_, said the parchment, _you will, in all seriousness, tell Molly Prewett that you love her -_

"Oh, sod," said James.

_- and that Evans was simply a redheaded substitute for the_ real _firebrand of your heart._

"Oi, oi." James gaped. "Don't you think this thing's a little _too_ imaginative?"

"Not as imaginative as mine," Sirius pointed out, but he felt somewhat better now. He might end up puking up all his breakfast after the - the - thing he had to do, but at least James would be suffering for his dare, too.

"You do realize," Remus said to James, "that you won't only risk losing your girlfriend, but also your manhood? Because either Lily or Arthur _will_ castrate you."

"With a butter knife," Peter added. Charming lad.

"I know," groaned James. "I _know_." He threw the parchment aside. "Forget castration, I'll be _disemboweled_." James buried his head in his hands. "Like one of Snape's _frogs_."

"Don't talk about Snape," Sirius snapped. "I don't even want to think about him. And you have to admit that my dare is a lot worse, Prongs - "

"How is yours worse?" James demanded. "All _you_ have to do is snog Snape - "

"Don't say it!" yelped Sirius.

" - in the middle of the Great Hall. But _I_ might very well lose the _love of my life_."

"As if I've got nothing to lose!"

"What, your oral virginity?"

"I'm not a - !" Sirius grabbed James's collar. "Nothing to lose, eh? How about my pride? My dignity? My _sanity_?"

"Never knew you were dignified _or_ sane," James drawled. "Proud, though..."

Sirius growled.

A few mutual insults later, they were down on the dormitory carpet, pummeling each other with pillows dragged off their beds.

"They're idiots," Remus observed, peacefully.

"Yeah," replied Peter. He watched the indecipherable jumble of limbs and pillows and displaced feathers a moment more, before reaching into his trunk for a packet of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. "Horseradish?" he proffered, knowing Remus's preference for root vegetables.

"No, thank you. Parsnip, please."

* * *

><p>The next morning, Sirius woke up with a crick in his neck, on account of the fact that his pillow had been beaten down to half its usual thickness. He'd tried to magic it back into shape, but it had sullenly resisted. Damn it, even the Hogwarts <em>pillows<em> had it out for him. Give 'em a thrashing or two, and suddenly, they thought they had _rights_.

"So," said Remus, perched atop his own bed in perfectly-pleated trousers, already dressed for school. Smug bastard. "Are you going to do it?"

Sirius bypassed the question by asking another. "Where's sodding James sodded off to?" His voice was a sleepy croak in his throat.

"_Sodding_ James has _sodded off_ to the girls' dormitory. He's picking Lily up for breakfast."

"He's not her bloody keeper," Sirius scowled.

"No," said Remus, patiently. "He's her boyfriend. A boyfriend who is going to do something very, very mean to her very shortly, and is trying to earn as many gold stars as he can, while he can."

"Like that's going to help." Sirius stumbled out of bed and right into his trousers, which weren't nearly as well-pleated as Remus's. His shirt was wrinkled, too, but he still shrugged it on.

Remus sighed. "_Correctum_." He flicked his wand at Sirius's clothes, and they righted themselves.

"_You're_ not my keeper, either," Sirius grumbled.

"No," said Remus, just as patiently as he had before. "I'm your friend. And also a loyal Gryffindor who doesn't want to lose House points for his friend's shabby uniform. Again."

"That was a whole week ago!" Sirius protested - but then Peter padded out of the showers, steaming like a freshly-baked bun.

"'Morning, lads," he said, before noticing that Sirius was struggling with his tie. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he trotted over to Sirius, batted Sirius's hands aside and did the tie up himself.

"You lot _all_ think you're my keepers," Sirius complained, and Remus rolled his eyes.

"That's because you act like a child."

"And why're you so good at doing up another bloke's tie?" Sirius wondered, as Peter finished with a satisfied pat.

"Er," said Peter.

"Maybe it's because the _other bloke_ is a clumsy dormmate," Remus said, quickly. He'd gone weirdly red in the face.

Sirius blinked. That was strange. Remus wasn't normally -

"So, are you actually going to do it?" Peter asked, tumbling into his own uniform, and casting a _Correctum_ on himself. Did Remus teach him that? "The dare, I mean."

"Only if James does his," Sirius retorted. He felt around under his bed for his bag, hauled it out, and slung it over his shoulder. It was still full of yesterday's books; they'd been too busy playing that stupid game to do any homework.

"James can only do his when Molly's there," Peter pointed out, "and she isn't going to be back from that seventh-year field trip until lunch."

"So it's your turn first," Remus concluded, a little too cheerfully for Sirius's tastes. "Or are you going to forfeit?"

The word 'forfeit' made Sirius see red - or rather, red-and-gold - just as Remus had probably intended it to. Bastard. "'Course I'm going to do it!"

"Really?" smirked Peter, daring to sound like he thought Sirius might _chicken out_.

"No respectable Gryffindor would turn down a dare! If I did, that'd make me... I don't know, a Ravenclaw, or something. A Hufflepuff!"

"It's funny, isn't it?" Remus mused, as they stepped out of the dorm. "That the only Houses that would never turn down a dare are Gryffindor and Slytherin?"

"The Slytherins can't bear to tell the truth, that's all." Sirius frowned. "Don't make it sound like they're anything like us."

"Hm," said Remus, meditatively.

Sirius gave in to the temptation to smack him upside his head.

* * *

><p>Just like that, they were in the Great Hall. But obviously, it wasn't the Great Hall but the Great <em>Hell<em>, because it would forever be the site of Sirius's eternal torment. He'd never be able to eat another meal in here without throwing up. Or clawing his own _face_ off.

"Sirius," said Peter, taking his elbow and guiding him to the Gryffindor table. "_Breathe_."

Sirius nodded. Wheezed. And grabbed a glass of pumpkin juice. A really _large_ glass of pumpkin juice. If only that Finnigan girl would finally fucking succeed at alchemizing it into beer…

Maybe Snape wouldn't make it to breakfast. Maybe Snape was still hanging upside-down by his batty feet in the Slytherin dungeons. Maybe he'd fallen to his death on the stairs. Maybe he'd been eaten by Hagrid's new pet. Maybe he'd turned into a cloud of noxious green smoke and faded away into in the ether. Who knew?

"Mate," Peter said, after noticing that Sirius had been doing nothing but staring at his food for five minutes. "Are you having a nervous breakdown?"

"Ha, ha, ha," said Sirius, and wondered why he was laughing like some sort of crazed arch-villain. "Of course not."

"Right," said Remus, dubiously. And slipped chocolate onto Sirius's plate.

Great. His friends thought he was too much of a _maiden_ to do this. Too much of a - Sirius's lips curled as he remembered James's jibe - _virgin_. Well, this was nothing. It wasn't like he hadn't kissed that - Greenmoss? Greenpass? - _whatever_ girl last weekend, when they'd snuck into the Leaky Cauldron. It had been great. It _must've_been great. Not that Sirius could remember it, exactly, but that was what approximately fifteen million gallons of fire-whiskey could do to a beautiful memory.

Never mind that, then. What about that snog with Jamina, the ridiculously pretty salesgirl at Flourish & Botts? _That_had been awesome. And hot. And steamy. Her glasses had fogged up, even. And then there was her cousin, Florence, who'd let him go _much_ further than kissing, and who, for all that she was a seventh-year Ravenclaw, had had the most _amazing_ pair of -

"Um, Sirius?" Peter nudged him. "Snape's here."

Thoughts of Florence and Florence's epic cleavage were abruptly ousted from his mind.

Sirius _tried_ to hold on to them - onto those comforting memories of bosomy softness - but then he made the mistake of looking up and seeing the sharp, angular profile of Severus Snape, Bane of All Existences (Including, Hopefully, His Own), and he was back to hating his life. Again.

Snape was skulking at the edges of the Slytherin table like some sort of sour-faced shadow, instead of being conveniently absent, like Sirius had been hoping he would be. Damn it. He was going to have to do this. He was going to have to -

No, not thinking about it. Thinking about it would _kill_ him. _Doing_ it would... also kill him... but at least it would only kill him _physically_. Dwelling on it would kill him _spiritually_.

"Oh, god." He couldn't touch his toast. He couldn't eat a sodding thing. He felt sick already. "I'm going to die."

Remus snorted. "Don't be melodramatic. It's just a ki - "

"DON'T SAY IT!"

The entire Gryffindor table turned to look at Sirius.

"Don't say what?" chirped a tiny first-year girl. God, she probably didn't even know what a kiss _was_, let alone a death-snog with the Earthly Incarnation of Satan.

Sirius groaned. And dropped his head into his hands.

"Are you all right?" Frank Longbottom, who'd just taken the chair opposite him, asked in his quiet, gentle voice. He was, as usual, a strange island of calm in the midst of the boisterous Gryffindors. He was like an oasis. A Buddha. A_god_. Surely a bloke that patient would help a friend out, right? Right.

"Hullo, Frank," said Sirius, feeling drunk on the pumpkin juice. "How d'you feel about Polyjuicing into Snape?"

Frank blinked at him. "Um. Why?"

"So that I can kiss you."

Frank _gaped_.

"Don't mind him," said Remus, hurriedly. "He's gone a bit barmy."

"_I've_ gone barmy? I'm not the one who made a Transfigured _sock_ tell other people who to snog!"

"And besides," Remus continued, ignoring him, "that's against the rules."

"That's right," rejoined Peter, the traitor. "The dare was to kiss _Snape_. Not a look-alike."

"Oh, _god_," said Sirius, again. "I'm going to _die_."

"There, there." Frank, apparently having picked up on what this was all about, patted Sirius on the shoulder. "It'll be all right."

"Save me, Frank." Sirius made his eyes go wide and wet. And he wasn't even _faking_. "You're the only one that can save me."

Frank looked pained. "I'd be happy to help, Sirius. Except..."

"Except?"

"Frank has a girlfriend, too, you know," Remus pointed out, and then, taking pity on Sirius's stricken expression, picked up the chocolate bar and pushed it into Sirius's mouth.

Sirius chewed mindlessly.

"Man up, Pads," said Remus, not unsympathetically. "It'll be over in a matter of minutes."

"Time is relative," Sirius muttered. "It'll feel like _centuries_. Of _continuous torture_."

"And if you don't do it," Peter said, "James will torture you about it for a lot _longer_ than a few centuries."

Damn it, Peter was _right_. James would be insufferable. And also, Sirius would lose his place of honor as the Marauders' most reckl - uh, courageous member.

He could do this. He could absolutely _do_ this.

And, hell, at least he'd be humiliating Snape as much as he'd be humiliating himself. _That_ had to be a bonus. Maybe Snape would even Avada Kedavra him into a mercifully early grave, or something. Casting an Unforgivable in public and getting sentenced to Azkaban would be the _perfect_ end to Severus Snape, wouldn't it?

Sirius scraped his chair backwards.

Remus and Peter stared up at him.

"You're really going to do it," Peter marveled.

"Of _course_ I'm fucking going to do it," Sirius said. "You just watch. James is going to have to _eat_ that sock."

"You do this," said Remus, "and you can _feed_ him that sock."

Good man.

"It can't be worse than that time James dared you to put a Christmas ornament on the Whomping Willow," Peter added.

"Oh, believe me," Sirius said. "It's worse."

But a dare was a dare. And Snape - Snape was going to hate this as much as _he_ was. Sirius would die frothing at the mouth immediately afterwards, because obviously, Snape was _made_ of cyanide, but at least it would be an honorable death. Or, at least, an infamous one - which, in a way, was better.

Sirius drew a deep breath, fixed his eyes on Snape, and began marching across the hall.

* * *

><p>By the time he got to the Slytherin table, Sirius was fairly sure he had at least fifteen different wands covertly aimed at him from within robe-sleeves and hidden pockets and cleverly-disguised holsters.<p>

Fucking Slytherins. Couldn't any of them just get up and shove him in the chest, like any honorable Gryffindor would do?

Snape was the only one that was actually _looking_ at him as he slapped a hand down on the table.

"Snape," he barked, but the bastard only tilted his head, like Sirius was a curious spectacle or a bizarre sideshow. "Get up."

Snape studied him - rather, looked him up and down - with an expression of bored condescension that frankly made Sirius want to bite it _off_. Well, he'd be getting the chance to do that very soon, wouldn't he? "Get. _Up_."

Interestingly, none of the other Slytherins intervened - or even gave the impression that they noticed what was going on. It figured that Snape was a friendless git, even in his own House.

Snape, of course, just sat there. No - he _lounged_, somehow flowing into a posture of boneless repose without even moving a muscle. Must be that goddamn snakelike body. Not a single joint in it. He kept looking up at Sirius, but dipped his eyes in a half-lidded, leisurely way that made it look like Snape was looking down at _him_. On him. Instead of being the brave interloper in a den of serpents, Sirius now looked ridiculous - a blustering idiot instead of a hero.

Sirius gritted his teeth. "We have business to discuss." There. That was a more Slytherin approach than 'we have a duel to fight', right?

"Business?" Snape, damn him, _smirked_. "Snakes have no business with lions, Black, unless it is to poison them."

A quiet chortle made its way around the Slytherin table - now, they _were_ looking at Sirius, a collective mocking appraisal that was as predatory as it was superior.

Sirius's patience snapped. "Poison _this_," he spat, and hauled Snape up by the collar.

In the split second before Snape's mouth crashed into his, Sirius caught a glimpse of Snape's wide, startled eyes, and thought - _yeah, I'm going to shut you up, I'm going to make sure you can never fucking look at me again, I'm going to -_

- but then Snape's lips were _there_, thin and disgusting and slack with shock, and Sirius did to them what he'd wanted to do from the start - he _bit_.

It must have fucking _hurt_ - god, he hoped it did - but instead of flinching or pulling away, Snape stubbornly stood his ground, and in a suspended moment that heralded his doom, Sirius saw those beetle-black eyes _narrow_.

_Fuck_, he thought, distinctly. _Here comes the hex._

Fully expecting Snape to grab for his wand and blast Sirius into next week, Sirius abruptly let him go, reaching for his own wand, except -

Snape grabbed _him_, instead. "Why, Sirius," he said, and Sirius boggled at the name, not to mention the way Snape had suddenly made his tone all - husky or something, "I thought you said you would let me go."

Sirius stared at him. "_What?_"

"All those illicit meetings - in abandoned classrooms and secret passages - I thought you wanted them to stop." Snape tilted his head, paying no mind to the scandalized gasps around him. "Or have you changed your mind?" His gaze dropped briefly to Sirius's chest, and a strange half-smile flickered across his face, brittle and vulnerable at once. "Your _heart_?"

This was… this was so fucking strange that Sirius could barely _parse_ it. "What in bollocks' name are you talking about?"

"I am _talking_," said Snape, his voice sliding into to a secretive, sinuous hiss, "about _this_."

And before Sirius could do anything but gape like an insensible fish, Snape had pulled him close, and was kissing him, again - kissing him with _intent_, that stern, hateful mouth no longer slack but _mobile_, and _hungry_, and Sirius had never, ever been kissed like this - utterly without care or tenderness, and it was -

It was -

Why wasn't he pulling away?

No, wait, he _was_ pulling away. He was - he was _lurching_ away, and his mouth - hell, his whole _jaw_ was wet, and all he could taste was heat and spit, and he was panting, and _Snape_ was panting, and Snape's eyes were -

They were gleaming.

With victory.

_No_. Just - no.

If this was how Snape was going to play it? Sirius was going to _win_.

He raised his chin, and said, into the pin-drop silence: "_You_ don't get to call an end to our little association, Snape._I_ do."

Snape's eyebrow twitched. Heh. Expecting a naive little splutter, was he? An unmanned, alarmed, homophobic Gryffindor making a tit out of himself? Panicking and denying everything, denying all that Snape was _implying_, thereby proving him _right_?

Well, sod that. Sirius would never, ever lose to Snape. In anything.

So he reached out, grabbed Snape by his tie (god, how'd he get his _tie_ greasy, too?), and then he was kissing Snape right _back_, kissing him in earnest, fucking that lying, evil mouth with his tongue and bloody well _dominating_ it, because if people were going to think he and Snape were having an illicit affair, anyway, Sirius was _not_ going to let them think that _he_ was the one taking it up the arse.

_There_, Sirius thought, viciously, after shoving Snape away from him and noting with satisfaction that Snape's knees wobbled before he steadied them. _Suck on that, bastard._

The Great Hall was unnaturally, deathly quiet.

Sirius realized that he might have just killed everyone with this display of grotesqueness - who wanted to see_Snape_ getting turned on? - but he found that he didn't care. Not one bit. Because Snape's cheekbones were a sharp blood-red, like knives the rest of his face had cut itself on, and his eyes were molten, hateful slits of black, and his hands were trembling claws of white. He looked ugly - and furious - and absolutely, completely owned.

Heh.

And if he could practically _feel_ Remus and Peter - and the entire Gryffindor table, for that matter - staring at him like he was a madman, _that_ didn't matter, either.

Because this? Was between him and Snape. Wizard to wizard. Mano a mano.

"You little bubble of _puss_," hissed Snape, so poisonously that Sirius was surprised everyone within listening distance didn't just drop dead from hearing him. "You'll pay for that."

"Oh, yeah? Funny, I remember it was _you_ having to 'pay for it'."

"Finally confirming your status as a whore, Black?"

"I was _talking_," said Sirius, from between gritted teeth hidden behind a sugar-sweet, aching smile, "about how you always pay for it - on your knees."

Snape _snarled_, seemingly so incoherent for a moment that it was the only sound he could produce.

"Oh, I forgot. Your elbows, too. On the floor. Against the wall. In that manky little classroom we always meet up in. On the - "

Snape _shouted_, whipping out his wand, and Sirius's wand was in his hand, too, and there was a surge of magic around them that shook the sodding _chandeliers_. Every hair on Sirius's body stood on end at what was coming, at the carnage they would no doubt wreak on each other, at the _thrill_ of it all over his _skin_, lightning-hot and _perfect_, and then -

Then, there was nothing.

Their wands weren't in their hands, anymore. There was only an echoing _absence_ of magic, like it had all been - pun intended - sucked out, and Sirius and Snape were left staring at each other, uncomprehending, panting like two boys who'd just raced across the Quidditch Pitch.

"Now, now, children. I'm sure a more amicable break-up is desirable, no?"

They turned to gape at Dumbledore, as one, because the Headmaster was standing up at the staff table, with his own wand drawn and still sparking, and Sirius's and Snape's wands in his other hand.

Snape was the first to gather himself. "We are not," he said, in harsh, clipped tones, "breaking up."

Sirius's head whipped around so fast, he almost sprained his own neck. "We're not?"

"We're not," said Snape, all low and dangerous, finally meeting Sirius's eyes again, and what shook Sirius was how cold Snape's _own_ eyes were, now, nothing of the old heat or hatred in them, at all. Just a black, barren wasteland of something, something Sirius couldn't understand or even pretend to _recognize_, except that it looked - and felt - a lot like death. His own, or Snape's? Or both? He didn't know. "We have much to discuss, _Sirius_. Much to... answer for. And much to prove. Do we not?"

Damn it. Snape wasn't supposed to get his control _back_ like this. He opened his mouth to say something, about how there was no way he was meeting Snape anywhere, that Snape could go fuck himself with his own wand, because he definitely wasn't getting Sirius's _dick_, when Snape continued -

"After all, it would be _terribly_ cruel to abandon you, after you made your desperation so clear."

Sirius's brain hurried to catch up. "My what?"

And there it was, that familiar, thrice-damned sneer. "This passionate display in the Great Hall… Honestly, Sirius, I had thought that you'd wanted to keep our - liaison - a secret. But, well, I hadn't known that you needed me _this_much."

Oh, _no_. Snape was undoing all his good work. Snape was making it look like _Sirius_ was the one who - "I don't need you!" Merlin, he sounded like one of those jilted women on those operas (and why were they called operas? Sirius had never heard anyone _singing_ in them, although there _was_ a lot of crying and wailing and wringing of hands) that Lily said she watched on her teller-vision. This was _horrible_.

"Yes, you've made your lack of interest in me _abundantly_ clear," he drawled, and the Slytherin girl sitting nearest to them tittered. Snape's voice _gentled_, then, in a patently fake, unbearably infuriating way, and he continued: "I am sorry, Sirius. For denying your feelings for so long."

"My - my _feelings_?" Sirius sputtered. "I'd rather _kill_ you than - than - "

"Kiss me?" Snape tilted his head, the very picture of Slytherin innocence - the you-just-know-I've-buried-those-babies-in-my-backyard brand of innocence. "But you did. Kiss me, that is."

Sirius _growled_, wishing that he still had his wand, that Dumbledore hadn't fucking _confiscated_ it, that he -

"How wonderful," said Dumbledore, cheerful as always, from the staff table. "I'm sure you two will make a wonderful couple."

Snape looked like he might throw up. For once, Sirius knew _exactly_ how he felt.

"Indeed, sir," Snape replied, ever so _politely_, and couldn't Dumbledore _hear_ the bloody murder in his voice? "We'll be sure to… talk things out."

"Just to ensure that any temporary disagreements don't lead to, ah, unanticipated displays of aggression, I'll be keeping your wands. For the rest of the week."

"Wha - you _can't_!" Sirius couldn't _believe_ this - but Snape, the bastard, looked like he'd expected it. Of _course_ he had. He'd probably only pretended to overreact, escalating the situation so that Dumbledore would take their wands away and Snape wouldn't have to fight Sirius's obviously superior dueling spells. Coward.

"This is for your own good, lads," said Dumbledore, eyes twinkling as he pocketed their wands. "The path of true love ne'er did run smooth."

All right, so Sirius _was_ going to throw up. He was going to throw up all over this _floor_, but at least it'd catch the hem of Snape's _robe_ -

"Steady," Snape muttered, out of the corner of his mouth, and kept smiling at Dumbledore. That smile would kill unicorns on sight, but Dumbledore, amazingly, survived it and smiled _back_. At _Snape_. Was the man even human? No, scratch that, he clearly wasn't. No human could possibly watch what had happened and deduce that Snape and Sirius were _dating_, as opposed to just fantasizing very fervently about increasingly creative ways to kill each other. "Ten, tonight?"

"Eleven," Sirius replied, dredging up a - possibly manic - smile of his own. Dumbledore, evidently convinced that his lovestruck students had reached an accord, sat down again, looking very pleased with himself. "Got an essay to finish."

"Tardy as ever, Black?"

"Just because _you_ finish your assignments like they were the last scrap of food in your larder, doesn't mean - " He huffed, already counting down the ways he could _hurt_ Snape. Make him _cry_. It was wonderfully calming. Maybe he ought to do that, when he couldn't sleep, instead of counting sheep. "Thanks to you, the whole school thinks we're fucking."

Snape barely spared him a glance. "Half of them already did."

What.

…What.

_What?_

Sirius was still staring helplessly when Snape smirked, sketched a mock-chivalrous bow, and returned to his seat among the Slytherins. Who were - wonder of wonders - actually gazing at Snape with awe. _Awe_, because he'd - what, manipulated Sirius? Taken a bad situation and turned it to his advantage? Survived screwing a Gryffindor? What?

Sirius all but staggered back to the Gryffindor table, which was about as noisy as a mausoleum, which was to say, not at all. Sirius hadn't vomited, but everyone in his House acted like they _had_. The lumpy porridge cooling in their bowls certainly _resembled_ vomit. It looked like Sirius felt on the inside.

Remus and Peter - and Frank, even _Frank_ - had absolutely no expressions on their faces, or possibly they had _every_expression on their faces, ranging from abject horror to crushing pity to appalled, deranged shock, and all those expressions mixed together in some incomprehensible series of facial tics until they resolved into nothing, at all.

James and Lily were still conspicuously absent - probably because they were off pashing nicely and heterosexually in some alcove, the traitors. Abandoning him during his time of need. During the battle of a lifetime. During the snog from _hell_ -

Sirius sat down on his old chair - or collapsed onto it, depending on one's definition of the word, 'sit'. He poured more pumpkin juice into his glass. Drank it. Poured some more. And drank it again. He'd have to excuse himself and piss like a horse between classes, but… who cared, right? He couldn't _think_ about classes. He couldn't think about _himself_. About what Snape had said. About what it had _meant_ -

Remus was the first to shake off his numb, mask-like stillness. He suddenly leapt into action, grabbing Sirius's arm and almost making him slosh his juice all over himself. "What was that? At the end?"

Peter came to life, too. They were like re-animated puppets. "It was the _end_ that bothered you? Not the - the - k-k-kissing?"

"That _was_ the bet, Peter," Sirius snapped, and yanked his arm out of Remus's grip, gulping down another swallow juice. It tasted like shite. Or possibly it was Sirius's _mouth_ that tasted like shite, now that it had Slytherin germs in it. Mere juice couldn't wash them out. He needed a stronger drink. Bleach, maybe? God, he'd _pay_ for Finnigan's research into that beer-spell. He had enough money in his vault, didn't he? "It was the bet, and James can lick my_boots_ for the rest of his life and _still_ not be able to make up for it - "

"That was a lot more than kissing," Remus mumbled, somewhat dizzily.

Sirius slammed his glass down on the table. "It was _exactly_ kissing, Moony. It was the textbook _definition_ of kissing."

"Calm down," interjected Frank, apropos of nothing. Sirius was _perfectly_ calm.

"When we thought you would kiss Snape," said Peter, slowly, waveringly, "we imagined something more like… a peck? A, um, brush?"

"A _peck_? You - that wasn't the bet, was it?" Wait, was it? The sock had said 'kiss', but James had said 'snog', which may have just been James's usual careless exaggeration, but - but for some reason, Sirius had taken it _as read_, and - fuck. _Fuck_. Snape hadn't even been the first one to use _tongue_. "Oh, god."

"Calm down," Frank repeated, sounding rather panicked. Sirius didn't have a mirror in front of him, but he didn't want to know what his own face looked like. What could make even _Frank_, Avatar of Zen, panic.

"'S all right," said Remus, hurriedly. "I mean, it's all - fine, whatever - um, whatever you - "

"You think I _wanted_ to do this?" Sirius's bile was rising in his throat.

"No! No, of course not. You just - tend to take things a step further, when it comes to bets, and that's - fine, it's absolutely _fine_, you really outdid James this time - "

"You're… you're the man, mate," finished Peter, lamely, like they didn't all think he was a freak.

Like _Sirius_ didn't think he was a freak. A stupid, gormless freak. 'How shall we let the Slytherin manipulate us today?' Fuck.

This was all Snape's fault. _All_ his fault. It could have ended at the first ki - bite, all right, it was a _bite_ - but then Snape had to have that _expression_ on his face, that smug, superior expression that made Sirius want to tear it right_off_, and he'd just done what he _had_ to, he'd -

He _couldn't_ have done otherwise.

Could he?

It didn't ruddy matter, anyway, because tonight, he was going to find Snape and take it out of his hide. Beat the bastard blue and black. Just because Sirius didn't have his wand, didn't mean he couldn't still make Snape pay for it._Really_ pay for it, not just on his knees, but on his _back_, mouth smashed to a bloody pulp, throat bruising from Sirius's grip, body shuddering, breath rasping in and out of him, eyes going _blank_ -

"Sirius," said Frank, very, very evenly. "Sirius. Whatever you're thinking, don't."

"Don't what?"

"You look like you're going to m-murder someone," stuttered Peter, pale and terrified, "and we all know who that someone is."

"Do you? What a coincidence. I do, too."

"Don't do it." Remus's hand was back on his arm, strong in a way that those who didn't know he was a werewolf wouldn't credit him with. "Pads, whatever it is he goaded you into doing, at the end - when the pair of you were grinning at Dumbledore like two of the nation's most disturbing lunatics - "

"We're meeting," said Sirius. "Tonight."

Remus pulled back. "What?"

"We're going to settle this."

"Settle - settle _what_? Settle each other in your _graves_?"

"Seems like the thing to do," said Sirius, and belched. Merlin, he'd drunk too much pumpkin juice.

"Oh, Sirius, don't go," pleaded Peter, urgently. "He'll bring others with him."

"No, he won't."

"He _will_!" Remus jabbed a finger in the vague direction of the Slytherin table, which was an extraordinary gesture for him, since Remus generally deplored finger-pointing as barbaric and rude. "At least let us follow you! He might not have a wand, but his friends do! He'll have them along, I'm certain of it!"

"He won't."

"He's a Slytherin," Remus insisted.

"He's _Snape_. He'd never let anyone else get the satisfaction of pummeling me."

"Right." Remus stared at him. "You _are_ daft, you know that?" And then, spotting Snape glaring at them from across the hall, he added, "You're _both_ daft."

Maybe they were. Maybe they'd _kill_ each other - no, they'd _definitely_ kill each other - but right now, it felt like the sanest thing in the world.

* * *

><p><strong>to be continued.<strong>  
>Please review!<p> 


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